At Tamarack Avenue and Carlsbad Boulevard, the beach parking lot is now fenced off. Cars have been kept out since the high tides and storm-surge waves of Labor Day weekend broke off chunks of asphalt along the lot's seaward edge, even with a boulder barrier in place. In mid-October, State Parks staff fenced the lot and surrounding property to people on foot as well.

A few blocks north, City of Carlsbad crews are tearing out and rebuilding beach stairways on their own schedule. A few miles south, the city is lowering boulders onto the sand under an emergency declaration. All three projects sit on the same coastline, and each one runs on the clock of whoever owns that piece of it. Most of the shoreline doesn't belong to the city.

Six miles of state beach, one mile under the city

Carlsbad has about seven miles of coastline, and California State Parks owns and manages about six of them. In a September 8 update reposted on the city's site, the city spelled out the boundaries. Its share runs from just north of Oak Avenue to the Oceanside border, plus a short piece of Terramar between Cerezo Drive and Cannon Road. Most of the beach from south of Pine to the Encinitas line is state property. On that northern mile, the city's beach guide says the sand is owned by the coastal property owners along that stretch and is open to the public through easements, with the city providing the access points.

The neighboring cities divide things differently:

That's why the city's October 16 update said it "simply does not have the authority" to lead repairs at Tamarack. The same split explains a smaller annoyance. The weathered sign at the entrance to Robert C. Frazee Beach, near the grass triangle on Carlsbad Boulevard, is a State Parks sign. The city says it has been asking for a fix since last November. State Parks plans to replace similar signs at its beaches during the fiscal year that runs from July 2026 to July 2027.

There is one overlap. Under an agreement with the state, the city maintains the stretch along the concrete seawall between Tamarack and Pine to a higher standard than the state otherwise would, with landscaping, benches and restrooms, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. So the walkway is kept up by the city, while the sand below it is the state's.

Tamarack waits on a state bid

State Parks has hired a coastal engineer to plan the Tamarack repairs. On October 1, State Parks Lt. Sean Homer told the Carlsbad Environmental Sustainability Commission that bids would be sought in November and that the work should be done by the end of December. The city put it more cautiously, saying State Parks "hopes" to finish by year's end. North County Pipeline reported on October 20 that the lot would stay closed at least until December.

The damage built up in stages. According to the same North County Pipeline report, swells from Hurricane Genevieve stripped sand from the shoreline in August and blocked off 35 parking spaces in the lot. Later wave action pushed the protective riprap westward onto the beach, which left large rocks scattered and the lot unstable.

North of Tamarack, the Union-Tribune described much of the beach between Tamarack and Pine as eroded down to cobblestones at the base of the seawall, the narrowest these beaches have been in years. Carlsbad State Beach runs from Oak Avenue south to nearly Cannon Road and takes in Frazee State Beach, Tamarack Surf Beach and Warm Water Jetty, according to the city's beach guide. The State Parks website currently lists it as open with restrictions on services or facilities.

The city's mile has its own construction calendar

The city is working on its own access points to the north, on a separate schedule. Its beach stairs project is replacing the four stairways along Carlsbad Boulevard between Hemlock and Pine avenues and widening the sidewalk over the cliff between Cherry and Pine. The stairs and sidewalks date to the 1980s. The concrete has chipped down to exposed rebar in places, and soil has washed out from under some foundations.

Demolition of the Sycamore and Maple avenue stairs began this fall. Here is how the city's project page lists the closures and open access points:

• Closed: Maple Avenue stairs, Sycamore Avenue stairs
• Open: Pine Avenue ramp, Tamarack ramp, Hemlock Avenue stairs, Cherry Avenue stairs
• Sidewalk: Parts of the west side of Carlsbad Boulevard close at times. Use the lower seawall or the east-side sidewalk.
• Bikes: Detoured onto Garfield Street from Oak Avenue to Chestnut Avenue

Work runs Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., except federal holidays. Traffic is down to one lane in each direction with a 20 mph limit, and some street parking is restricted. Weekends fall outside those hours. The current phase runs through spring 2027, and the city doesn't build on this project between Memorial Day and Labor Day. A separate city project to improve ADA beach access near Pine and Tamarack is in design, and construction could start in a few years.

The city's mile north of Oak has its own fall oddity. Small stones have gathered along the shoreline in scalloped clusters. The city calls these "cobble cusps" and says waves form them naturally. Nobody dumped them there. North of the Village, the city lists public beach access at Ocean Street, which also has public parking, and at Carlsbad Village Drive, Grand Avenue, Christiansen Way, Beech Avenue and Rue des Chateaux.

South Carlsbad Boulevard is a city job on state sand

The road gets its own fix. Carlsbad Boulevard, the old Highway 101, is city infrastructure, and the city moved fast to protect it. A geotechnical report recommended emergency stabilization for a section of bluff north of the bridge at Las Encinas Creek, and the city declared a local emergency on September 9 to speed up the work.

In early October, crews began trucking in boulders weighing two to six tons each, and a crane lowered them from the roadside to the beach. The Union-Tribune reported that the new rock adds 192 feet to the north end of an existing 1,270-foot revetment. About 750 feet of that revetment went in during 2009 and another 520 feet in 2015 and 2016.

For anyone driving or riding south through the area:

1. Allow extra time southbound on Carlsbad Boulevard between Solamar Drive and Island Way.
2. The bike lane in that section is closed during construction, so cyclists share the travel lane.
3. The city expects revetment work to continue through late 2026.

The longer-term question is whether to move the vulnerable section of south Carlsbad Boulevard farther east. The city expects updated costs and analysis on that in late 2027.

Why the sand isn't coming back soon

Sand drives all of this, and new sand comes slowly. In February 2025, the beach at Tamarack received 400,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from Agua Hedionda Lagoon. Dredging that lagoon used to be the job of San Diego Gas and Electric, which needed it for the Encina power plant's cooling system. That job now belongs to the owners of the Carlsbad desalination plant. Because the lagoon was dredged in early 2025, the Union-Tribune reported that another round is unlikely for two or three years. The San Diego Association of Governments ran regional sand projects in 2001 and 2012 and is planning a third, which would be its largest. Projects like that take years to plan and fund.

That timing matters because of what's forecast for this winter. UC San Diego reported on October 20 that in early October, NOAA put the chance of a strong-to-very-strong El Niño arriving January through March 2027 at 83%. The university's experts also said El Niño does not guarantee a wet Southern California winter. For beachgoers, that means whatever sand the beaches have now may be all they have for a while, and beach conditions can change from one week to the next.

Parking around the gaps

With the Tamarack lot closed, nearby street parking matters more. The city says it added 44 spaces in the Village and Barrio last year. More recently it added 11 on State Street, along Oak Avenue between Tyler Street and the railroad tracks, and around the beach areas. Starting in spring 2027, the city plans to add 16 more by switching parallel parking to diagonal or perpendicular on Grand Avenue between the Tyler Street alley and Jefferson Street and on Chestnut Avenue near Pine Park.

Farther south, the State Parks page for South Carlsbad State Beach says on-site parking is limited and suggests carpooling, rideshare, or parking nearby and walking in. For updates on a specific stretch, check with whoever owns it. For Tamarack, Frazee and Carlsbad State Beach, that's State Parks. For the stairways, the seawall walkway, the boulevard and the north beach access points, that's the city, which has said it will keep posting updates as State Parks shares them.

Robert Blank grew up on this coast and has lived in Cardiff-by-the-Sea since 1973, long enough to watch these beaches lose and regain sand many times. If you have questions about how shoreline access and coastal projects near a Carlsbad property affect your plans, Robert Blank Realtor is glad to go over what's known. Get in Touch.